UP Construction Council Hosts Professional Trades Career Day for Area High Schoolers
Area high school students got a chance to try out construction equipment and learn about lucrative careers at the fall Upper Peninsula Professional Trades Career Day on Wednesday.
About 500 students from Gogebic, Ontonagon and Copper counties attended the event, which was hosted by the Upper Peninsula Construction Council and held at the Ontonagon County Fairgrounds.Activities on site included scaffold construction, operating jackhammers, mini-excavators and spider cranes, bending conduit, fusion welding plastic pipe and other methods of connecting sanitary water lines, and trying out virtual reality simulators for electrical, excavating, and welding. In addition students had the opportunity to interact with multicraft signatory union contractors who are or will be working in the area.
“Career Day is a chance for high school sophomores, juniors and seniors to work with hands-on demonstrations in the construction trades,” said UPCC Executive Director Mike Smith. “The students had a great time while also learning how they can enter fields that earn sustainable wages in long-term employment opportunities.”Exhibitors and sponsors included IBEW Local 906, Laborers Local 1329
UA Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 111, Bricklayers Local 2, Carpenters/Millwrights Local 1510, Sheet Metal Workers Local 7, Painters Local 1011, Operating Engineers Local 324, MJ VanDamme, Gundlach Champion, MJ Electric, CR Meyer, Lakehead Constructors, and U.P. Michigan Works!.
